By Kate Gibson and William L. Watts, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stock-index futures held Thursday gains after U.S. economic reports showed durable-goods orders rising more than expected in September and initial jobless claims dropping last week.
“From an economic perspective we’re getting there slowly,” said Paul Nolte, managing director at Dearborn Partners in Chicago.
Demand for long-lasting U.S. goods increased 9.9% last month, while first-time applications for unemployment benefits fell by 23,000 to 369,000 in the latest week.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJZ2 +0.39% rose 60 points, or 0.5%, to 13,081.
S&P 500 Index futures SPZ2 +0.58% gained 7.7 points to 1,413, while Nasdaq-100 futures NDZ2 +0.67% advanced 17.75 points to 2,668.25. U.S. equity benchmarks finished broadly but moderately lower on Wednesday.
Among heavyweights announcing results Thursday, household-products maker Procter & Gamble Co. PG +0.95% topped Wall Street profit expectations. See: P&G Q1 adjusted net beats analyst estimates .
Health insurer Aetna Inc. AET +0.66% posted a surprise 1.8% rise in third-quarter profit. See: Aetna Q3 net rises 1.8%; year view lifted .
Shares of Zynga Inc. ZNGA -3.23% jumped in premarket trade, rallying after the social-gaming firm reported an expected loss late Wednesday but also said it had inked a U.K. gaming deal and announced a $200 million share buyback. See: Zynga boosts sentiment with buyback, deal .
Shares of Symantec Corp. SYMC +0.06% rose a day after the maker of security software reported a 6% rise in fiscal-second quarter profit, topping estimates. See: Symantec earnings rise, beating targets .
Apple Inc.’s AAPL +0.55% third-quarter results are likely to be the main event on the earnings front, analysts said.
“Tech results have been fairly mediocre in [the third quarter] so expectations may have been taken lower on the back of that, but given the given the sheer size of Apple any major movements in its stock price will be easily felt across the broader market,” said Jim Reid, Deutsche Bank’s London-based strategist, in a note.
“Recall that Apple’s shares fell 5% in after-hours trading after missing its earnings back in July, so all eyes will be on its [results] today after the U.S. close,” Reid said.
A survey of analysts who follow Apple by FactSet Research produced a consensus forecast for earnings of $8.82 a share. Read: IPhone the big wild card in Apple's results .
Also Thursday, European shares posted solid gains, with the Stoxx 600 Europe Index XX:SXXP +0.66% rising 0.6%. See: Unilever, BASF help drive gains for Europe .
The U.K. Office for National Statistics reported that the British economy rebounded out of recession in the third quarter, posting a stronger-than-expected 1% quarterly rise in gross domestic product after three consecutive quarters of contraction. That marked the strongest quarterly growth in GDP since 2007, aided in part by the impact of the London Olympics and technical factors. See: Pound jumps as U.K. economy returns to growth .
September data on pending home sales, due at 10 a.m. Eastern, are expected to show signed contracts on sales of single-family homes, condominium units and co-ops reversed most of their 2.6% August drop.
The conclusion Wednesday of a two-day meeting of the Federal Reserve’s policy-making panel was uneventful, as expected.
The central bank made no changes to its plans to make $40 billion in monthly purchases of mortgage-backed securities via its third round of quantitative easing, or QE3, unveiled last month. The Fed is also buying $45 billion of Treasurys offset by sales of shorter-term securities under its Operation Twist program. See: Fed sticks to QE3 plan, given mixed growth signals .
“Unsurprisingly, market reaction was limited with stocks drifting lower along with Treasury yields, which was more a reflection of economic weakness elsewhere,” said James Knightley, economist at ING Bank in London. “Instead, attention turns to the outcome of the election, after which we will have a better understanding of how bad the fiscal cliff will be for economic growth.”
Nymex crude-oil futures CLZ2 +0.54% rose 47 cents to $86.20 a barrel. Gold futures GCZ2 +0.78% advanced $13.10 an ounce to $1,714.7. See: Oil futures aim to end 5-session skid .
The dollar index DXY -0.08% fell to 79.905. The euro EURUSD +0.09% advanced on the dollar to $1.2975, while the US. unit gained against the Japanese yen USDJPY +0.53% to ÂĄ80.222.
Kate Gibson is a reporter for MarketWatch, based in New York.
William L. Watts is MarketWatch's European bureau chief, based in Frankfurt.
